BlackPope in Jail for 'Contempt' by Judge Mangan

by adverturism Fri Apr 16, 2004 13:56

that guy should stop all this rubbish and start trying to stay outside of prison and build for the anti-bush protests.

what's with "black pope"- some kinda ego thing?

by qwerty Fri Apr 16, 2004 14:30

funny how adverturism has already judged the situation even before the full report is in.

by jeff Fri Apr 16, 2004 14:32

Nice to hear from you again, Garda codename "adventurism". Mind you, you should be doing more important things on your lunch break besides fobbing about at web sites. It is a waste of taxpayers money. :0)

by I'm waiting Sat Apr 17, 2004 00:38

What did Mr Pay-Attention-to-Me do now? Mangan's a gobshite but Rice is catching up fast.

I'm offering critical solidarity...

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker Sat Apr 17, 2004 09:05

Yep maybe you should wait. If you'd ever been in front of Mangan you know you'd have to compromise a lot to avoid a contempt charge. Owen can't make those compromises when faced by such an abuse of power, lack of professionaalism and accountability and respect for the best of legal traditions. Thus Owen is in chains today and you and I inhabit a sort of minimum security where we police ourselves on behalf of the powers that be.

People subjectively choose where they make their stand and say their NO. For Owen it's a different place than mine and hopefully yours...but it's a place.

"Don't just do/say something stand there!"
-Dan Berrigan SJ

We're heading off to Tullamore to say NO to Cowen and EU foreign ministers complicity with this war.

by Tim Sat Apr 17, 2004 13:31

Hey stop bitching about the delay. Some of us were busy doing support!

Anyway, here's the court report.
It's not as detailed as usual because everything was rushed and it wasn't always easy to hear as court was PACKED.

The case dates back to December and Owen has made about 8 or more appearances to date.

Mangan had previously imposed severe bail conditions on Owen and jailed him for several weeks.
I believe this is the first time that Owen has appeared in front of Mangan since the High Court in Dublin freed Owen and tore up Mangan's ridiculous bail conditions. (not that a judge would take a thing like that personally :) )

COURT REPORT

DPP v Owen Rice
Ennis District Court Friday 16th April 2004
11am.

Judge Joseph Mangan
Inspector Tom Kennedy -prosecuting.

Owen was making yet another appearance for alleged incidents on Dec 6th and 7th (breach of the peace, obstruction) which he denies.

Owen's case was no.2 on the list, so he was up fairly fast before a packed court.

The Judge asked Inspector Kennedy for the State's application.

Inspector Kennedy told the judge that the case was up for mention, and he had not even expected Owen to show up as he thought Owen was going to a conference.

The Judge said that Owen was obliged to be in court, and Owen assured the judge that he was indeed in attendance.

With that bit of irrelevance over, Mangan asked Kennedy for the State's application.
Inspector Kennedy said the state wanted to adjourn to 13th May.

The Judge, without looking at Owen said
"adjourned by consent to Thursday 13th May in Shannon"

Owen spoke up saying that the case was not yet adjourned by consent as Owen had some applications to make.

The Judge, with his usual lack of respect for defendants, said "It's adjourned, you can make your applications in May"

Owen said that he was entitled to make applications, and the court was obliged to hear them, even if the judge did not like hearing them.

Owen started to make his applications, which related to evidence asked for but STILL not provided by the prosecution.

the judge instructed the Gardai to remove Owen from court.

Some of the Gardai were a bit hesitant, and quite a few members of the public muttered disgust at the judges actions.

Owen continued with his applications even as he was being escorted towards the door.

1. A receipt for the mini-disk player taken by the Garda Siochana

2. A copy of the warrant under which they searched his car, a copy of the results of the search, in full compliance with the laws under which the mcar was searched.

3. The the Judge recuse himself from the case on the following grounds
(a) Judge Mangan is a respondent in a judicial review inititiated by Owen through the High Court.
(b) the judge has reversed the burden of proof onto the defendant by refusing to assist in introducing material evidence, most notably an audio recording of the arrest.
(c) that the judge had demonstrated manifest bias against Owen in a public court
on several occassions, notably
June 26, 2003 in Tulla, when the Judge had Owen unlawfully arrested and detained ( http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=52923)

and 6 Dec, 2003 in Tulla, when Owen was denied legal representation, in violation of his constitutional rights.

and on Feb 12th 2004 in Shannon, when the judge unlawfully imposed sanctions upon Owen (later shredded by the the High Court) and had Owen imprisoned (later freed by the High Court) [see http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=63409 ]

The judge motioned for him to be expelled, and Owen said "it is unlawful for you to refuse to listen to these applications"
That was about as much as Owen got to say as he was dragged out the door, (with many noises of disgust from the public) but, the judge started fuming and ordered him brought back in.
He asked the clerk for a blank warrant, and said "I am charging you with contempt of court for accusing this court of bias"

Owen replied that he was "doing nothing other than making his applications to the court"

the Judge snapped back at him "I'll hear you in Shannon on the 13th of May"

Owen insisted that he had the right to have his applications heard at the hearing and repeated a brief summary of them, and requested again that the judge recuse himself from the case.

the Judge said to him "I'll give you one last opportunity to purge your contempt"

Owen replied that he had not held the court in contempt.

The judge waved his hand and said "Limerick Prison, 7 days, take him away"
he then looked at Owen and said "I'll see you in Shannon on the 13th of May"

Owen replied "I'll see you in the High Court"
- a remark which went down well with the public.

Sgt Seamie Ryan then took Owen away in a squad car to Abbey st. Garda Station in Ennis.

Again there was more muttering of disgust from the public, and some worried expressions from some of the other defendants, yet to be heard.

by Tim Sat Apr 17, 2004 13:47

was the sneering cocky detective who tried to harass me at Shannon on April 4th.

(see report )
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64178

After Owen had been arrested and had given us his property to look after, I noticed the sneering detective in the car park along with Detective.Sgt. Mike Houlihan and a uniformed Sgt (CL 8)

I decided I would get his name, and brought Ed along with me as a witness.

our mystery man saw me approach and said "Hi Tim" with a big grin on his face, obviously amused by Owen's fate.
I didn't get into any banter about Owen and simply said "Hello, would you mind telling me your name now"
"I'm refusing to give you my name" he said.
"I'm asking you your name, why won't you give it?" I asked.

cop - "I'm refusing to give you my name, I don't have to tell you, there's no law says I do" he said, crossing his arms.

Tim - "you took an item from me, in an official capacity two weeks ago, and you refused to identify yourself"

cop - "Oh, so It's your property then is it? In that case I'll be doing you for litter he said"

Tim - "...Whatever.... I didn't abandon it, you never gave me a receipt for it, and if you want to 'do' me for it, then you'll have to give me your name"

Cop - "I'm Detective Andrew Hayes of Shannon garda station. you can expect something on that litter charge soon"

Tim -"Now, why wouldn't you tell me that before? Are you ashamed of yourself or something that you don't want to identified?
Well, now that I have your name I can make a complaint against you, because you barged me out of the way to take that item, and that's assault".

I then left and went to check on Owen at the cop shop. After a wait of 45 minutes I was allowed to talk to Owen for 3 minutes.
Although not happy to be in custody again, Owen was taking things in his stride adn appeared to have written several pages of notes for his legal team.

I then went to talk to the solictiors firm handling his High Court affairs, I confirmed what had happened in court. It is expected that there will be a legal application in the High Court on Monday to free him.

by boby Sat Apr 17, 2004 14:47

We must support owen
If we had 100 black popes Ireland would be a very diffrent country.
be the democracy you want to see

Free the Peacenicks
Jail the corrupt

stand together or Fall!

by pc Sat Apr 17, 2004 17:20

:)

by ec Sat Apr 17, 2004 18:10

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=43958

by Eoin Dubsky Sat Apr 17, 2004 20:30

Please send my warm wishes to the Black Pope. I'll be back in Ireland next week. Hopefully he'll be out again by then. The Bard of Indymedia could write another verse or two at this stage... the way Mangan is going, you could have enough material for a book!

by Lensky Sat Apr 17, 2004 22:53

Now this is the kind of thing that brings our mvement into disrepute. It's crying wolf and when a garda REALLY assaults someone people will just shrug and say, more exaggeration.

by Anon Sun Apr 18, 2004 04:32

If Owen Rice adopts this attitude every time he appears in court, he will be heading to jail for contempt after each appearance. This might make him feel morally superior but its bad tactics, and plain stoopid.

On one level I feel for him, on another I think he's just acting the clown. He's not doing himself any good. He's not doing the movement any good. What exactly is the point? How is this helping to get US troops out of Shannon?

Instead of encouraging him, activists should be suggesting (in a spirit of solidarity) that he reflect a bit.

by Phuq Hedd Sun Apr 18, 2004 05:12

...is that of your bowels.

If a Gardai (an officer, an employee of the State entrusted with duties, obligations and responsibilities) is pushed out of the way by a civilian you can be assured that he'd be screaming blue murder about how anarchists killed him and then shot him and then ate his children with ketchup.

You can also be assured that this "officer" who has all the aforesaid duties to uphold starts to push people about then that's not just a simple discourtesy and the type of manners you'd expect from a corner boy, but it's also an abuse of his power.

Tim's report makes it quite clear that the smirking fool that attempted to harrass him was acting well below any professional let alone personal standards.

by Damien Moran - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Mon Apr 19, 2004 00:12

Excellent court report and much solidarity with eoin. Hope to see him out this coming weekend. What time is he in High Court?

by Anthony Mon Apr 19, 2004 02:33

The report was certainly worth the wait., not that it matters very much what time it's published.

While acknowledging that Eoin's behaviour can at times act as a good example of what not to do in encounters with the forces of the state, I have to respectfully disagree with Anon's statement that Eoin is "just acting the clown". In this case, I fully respect his insistence that the judge act fairly in relation to listening to his applications in respect of his misappropriated personal belongings and the results of the car-search. On a number of previous occasions, Eoin has made similar applications and has been assured that the matter would be resolved but it seems that the past assurances were meaningless.

It also seems that the state is quite willing to waste Eoin's time by dragging him to a courtroom in Clare on yet another occasion and that on Friday Inspector Kennedy had no intention of proceeding any further with the case. Very curiously, he seems to be unaware that Eoin is required by law to be present at the court. There seems to be a pattern of harassment of one man who refuses to surrender his dignity and rights to play the role of the subordinate subject.

On a practical note, I would agree with Anon in questioning the wisdom of winding (the seemingly mad) Mangan - who essentially has dictatorial powers in his own courtroom - even further by continually asking him to recuse himself from the court case.

In any case, I wish Eoin has the best of luck in the High Court.

by Tim Mon Apr 19, 2004 15:21

Owen was rather inconvenienced and a bit bored with his surroundings. He's not deterred by Mangan's bully boy tactics.
He also received some post which was sent during his previous stay in Limerick.


Lensky accuses me of crying wolf.
"when a garda REALLY assaults someone people will just shrug and say, more exaggeration."

I'm sorry, I didn't know I was meant to take it all lying down, and wait until they start kicking me unconscious before I complain.
I must remember this rule of yours Lensky,
"When standing in public place, abiding by the law, and taking notes of illegal activity, must NEVER complain of rough treatment by the authorities."

I hardly need to explain the stupidity of commenting on it when you didn't see it, but to paint you a clearer picture, I was bending down to pick up this banana skin. I was between a wall and this cop.
The cop then barges me sideways so that his hip connects with my head, knocking me out of the way so he can stand on this banana skin, which, for some reason he is obsessed with. He was being ridiculous, stupid and using physical force against someone who was obviously not breaking the law.... what part of that is crying wolf?

What would have happened if I had barged him back? an assault charge and a few months in the nick, obviously.

So, tell me, why should Garda Hayes be treated any differently to me?

It's the attitude that we should expect and put up with this behaviour that allows people like Owen to be hospitalised after he is beaten up in Mills St. Garda station in Galway.